


All We Are

by Avelera



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Dwarves In Exile, Grubby Soul Thorin, Honor, Lake-town, M/M, Missing Scene, Pre-Slash, Shame, Thorin Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 00:10:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5561236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avelera/pseuds/Avelera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin and Bilbo share a private moment in Lake-town where they speak of honor, and the loss of it, and whether Thorin was ever really the hero Bilbo thought he was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All We Are

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an anonymous prompt on Tumblr: Hello! Here's a prompt for you: thorin getting anxious about not being good enough and How Bilbo handles it. (This is a liiiiiittle bit selfish because I'm in that situation right now. Also bagginshield being the tender ship that it is.) Thank you :D
> 
> This fic gave me the chance to explore a theme I've been dying to take a look at - whether Thorin ever had to compromise his honor during the Exile, and if he still carries those scars. Bilbo having only known him during the Quest, which is admittedly an attempt for Thorin to save his own soul, may not know who Thorin has had to be up to that point, and here he catches a glimpse.
> 
> Title is taken from the song I wrote this to, "All We Are", by Matt Nathanson, which really captures Thorin's mindset here.

Thorin made a good show of revelry during the Master’s party in their honor, but Bilbo had not spent half a year in his Company without knowing a mere show when he saw it. Thorin had made gruff, assertive conversation with the Master and his oily deputy as long as necessary before they grew either bored or tired by his short answers and stoic demeanor regarding the _exact_ price of gold they could expect from the Mountain, and they had gone off to seek their own amusements. 

Bilbo saw the moment they left and Thorin’s shoulders dipped, the command he had donned in the square as if it were a suit of heavy armor falling away. He was still stern, and imposing, but more than either of those Thorin looked tired. The dwarf glanced across the table to the rest of the Company who were deep in their cups, refilled his own wine glass to the brim, and with a nod took his leave. The dwarves and other guests, having finished their meal of greasy fish and fowl dripping with fat, had hardly taken notice, but had begun to sit back from the groaning table, the cacophony of conversation growing by the minute.

From the far end of the table, Bilbo’s eyes tracked Thorin’s departure. He did not go far, only took his place in a shadowed corner overlooking the din with his back to the wall, facing the door as if taking guard duty. His expression eased the minute the shadows enclosed him in their relative solitude, but his eyes were alert as he took an idle sip of the dark wine. From that corner it would be hard to tell him apart by height from the other Men, and he must be able to survey the entire room, and all its exits.

Lonely work, and work Thorin probably wanted to be lonely, except Bilbo was already excusing himself, dabbing a faded napkin to his lips as he too slipped away, with even less notice than Thorin had received. After Bilbo had spoken out in support of the dwarven king-to-be, the town seemed to have forgotten all about him. His only value had been as a non-dwarf willing to vouch for Thorin’s cause. Probably anyone could have done it, even a street urchin, without it mattering one way or another to the Master. Politics was only ever a show once gold was on the table.

Bilbo drew closer, and flinched when Thorin caught sight of him. Even a blind hobbit could have seen the social cue broadcasted by standing alone. Bilbo knew he was no doubt invading Thorin’s privacy, an unwelcome guest in his shadowed corner, even with the aid he had given in the square.

But Thorin did not glower as Bilbo approached. If anything, his tense expression smoothed and he gave a welcoming nod to the spot beside him which Bilbo took as easily as if it were made for him, as if the space at Thorin’s left side had always been there waiting for him.

“You seem anxious,” Bilbo remarked, as casually as he could, given that any reason for Thorin to be anxious could very well mean danger to life and limb.

Thorin glanced over slowly, expression barely flickering except for the suggestion of a fond smile at the corner of his lips, which was surely Bilbo’s imagination. “They are all deep in their cups, even the guards. I more fear a brawl than that we would be beaten or robbed. We are of no use to the Master dead at this point, not with the the promise of gold.”

“You're very certain of that,” Bilbo said. He had not brought a drink, and his hands fidgeted for something to do, now with his pipe lost in the rapids. Thorin did not hesitate, but passed his wine glass without a word, and Bilbo took a grateful sip.

“I have seen his kind many times before,” Thorin said. He accepted the wine glass back from Bilbo’s hand, but only held it idly and did not drink.

“Well as long as we keep our word, there’s nothing to fear,” Bilbo said, being completely matter-of-fact. Besides that trinket in the Goblin Tunnels, he had never stolen a thing in his life, and arguably the creature there had been trying to kill him so fair was fair if it meant saving his own life, which the little ring had.

Yet Thorin stiffened beside him, at words that had been meant to be soothing, and Bilbo looked at him askance.

“We just have to keep our word, right Thorin?” Bilbo said carefully. Yet Thorin had gone still, and even the wine in his glass showed no ripples as he held it, hands steady.

“You spoke with such certainty about my ‘word’,” Thorin murmured, lips barely moving, as if a great weight had settled upon him. He looked up from his glass, over at Bilbo, eyes glittering in the torchlight. “Why? What do you know of my word?”

Bilbo choked, incredulity rising up inside him as a polite cough. “Well, how could there be any doubt? You’re Thorin Oakenshield, hero of that great dwarven battle I can’t pronounce, prince of Erebor, future King under the M—”

“Stop.”

Bilbo’s gaze flickered, he had dropped it as he stumbled over the words. He grimaced, wondering how to express what he felt he knew in his heart? Someone of Thorin’s presence must be as honorable as he appeared, for how could anyone of such drive and purpose have the same petty instinct for dishonesty as the rest of them? It seemed impossible, it _was_ impossible. All great heroes cared about their honor…

He hesitated. But had Thorin ever talked about his own? Or had Bilbo only filled in the blanks for him?

A muscle twitched in Thorin’s jaw as Bilbo met his gaze, and then it was the dwarf looking away, not him.

“I haven’t been any of those for a very long time,” Thorin said, his voice rough. “Balin had no business telling you that fairytale.”

“So none of it ever happened?” Bilbo said, stricken.

“Of course it happened,” Thorin snapped back under his breath. “The tale is true, but it holds nothing of real importance. I chopped off a single orc’s arm on a _field_ of the creatures, and did not even manage to kill him. Whatever victory lay in that was too late to save my grandfather, so in the end it mattered for nothing. My brother died in a futile assault, my father fled the field in shame, and that night we burned dwarves _at my order_ because we had not the time or the strength to bury them.”

“Thorin…” Bilbo began, but could find no words. He felt he had been allowed inside a door he had barely known existed, only to find chaos on the other side. He doubted Thorin had ever spoken so many words to him in one sitting, and never anything so personal. He felt he should recoil, smile politely and retreat in the face of such exposure, yet his feet were rooted to the ground. And he? He was already thinking of what to say to comfort Thorin, as if they were old friends, as if they were more, but he could hardly stop himself when his hand was already catching Thorin’s arm. “That says nothing of your honor.”

“‘A young dwarf prince’, one he could call king,” Thorin muttered, as if the words were poison. “And you never wondered why he never spoke of the years that followed?”

“Why would I, when everything I needed to know was right in front of me?” Bilbo hissed back, unsure why they were whispering but too caught up to care. “I don’t need to know your whole life to know who you are, _what_ you are.”

Thorin paused, eyes crinkling at the corner at Bilbo’s words in what have been a smile or a grimace. “Have you ever bothered to read that contract you carry everywhere?” he said, nodding towards Bilbo’s coat pocket.

Bilbo frowned. “Enough. I’m promised a fourteenth share if we succeed, that seems fair enough.”

“You should learn to read more carefully. Every clause on that page was designed by my order to give us everything and you nothing. That is unless the contract was filled to the letter which, I assure you, is impossible. I know, I have used such contracts many times,” Thorin said.

Did it really? Had he truly been so foolish? Humiliation rose, choking in Bilbo’s throat and heating his cheeks. But that was not the matter at hand, and much had changed. He swallowed, forcing it back. “Well, why not? You didn’t know me, and I hardly cut an impressive figure fainting on the parlor floor.”

“It would not have mattered to me then if you had been impressive, that contract was written long before I met you,” Thorin cut in sharply, then softened. He looked to Bilbo’s hand still wrapped around his arm, and placed his own warm palm on top of it, clasping Bilbo’s fingers gently. Bilbo flinched, wondering if it was going to be pulled away, and he scolded for the impertinence, but Thorin only held it. “But now I am ashamed.”

“Really, it’s nothing…” Bilbo said, but Thorin’s hand tightened around his, silencing him.

“Not only for the contract. Do you think I am blind to the fact that you have been a better leader to the Company than I? You, who I nearly drove away, to whom I showed not even the simplest kindness? It has not escaped my notice that we would be dead at least three times over if you had not come along on our journey.”

Bilbo could not prevent a faint smile at that, a pleasant glow flickering within his stomach and warming its way up to his heart like a candle flame. “It was my pleasure to be of service,” and because he did not want to seem quite so pleased as he actually was, he sniffed and cleared his throat, raising his chin and adding loftily, “Still, it is nice to be appreciated.”

“It is only the barest measure of what you deserve,” Thorin insisted. “While I have brought nothing but failure and death.”

Bilbo scoffed, “Come now, the trolls at least were my fault for getting caught.”

“If not for me, the Pale Orc would not have pursued us,” Thorin retorted. “And we might all have been slain if not for turns of luck that could never be counted on, or accounted for, and I did nothing to bring them about. For my quarrel with the elves we may have languished a hundred years in that prison if not for you, for my reputation in the towns of Men we may have been imprisoned here had you not offered your honor to bolster mine.”

“Of course, any time,” Bilbo said, with all the quickness of drawing-room pleasantries. Yet he hesitated, offering more carefully, “Though, I do hope you will keep both our words. I would hate to besmirch my honor just as I’m becoming a hero.” He could not resist a self-deprecating grin at the thought.

“Aye, the first mark against it is always the hardest,” Thorin said softly. “Then they grow easier. Every time it grows easier, until you think nothing of the oaths broken, or the promised work undone, or the payment unfulfilled as you flee like a thief into the night.”

“What—?” Bilbo said, the words stopping on his tongue before he could go further, as a picture opened in his mind that he almost dared not pursue, that he wished he could blot out. He saw dark roads and moonless nights, a cloaked figure glancing over his shoulder, skulking in the shadows, hiding in the corner of rooms. Not walking proud as Bilbo had known him, not as he should be…

The spell broke, as Bilbo felt warm lips pressed to his forehead, and fingers entwined in the curls at the back of his head, and Bilbo looked up just as Thorin drew back far enough to press their foreheads together. “You seem to see me only as the dwarf prince of Balin’s fairytale. I have not been him for so long I no longer know who he is.” Thorin released his grip, pulling gently away so they were once more standing apart, as if nothing happened, though Bilbo’s eyes widened and his mind reeled, but not so much that he did not hear Thorin’s quiet words, “But you make me want to be him again.”

Thorin turned away, looking back towards the room, up the stairs that led to the quarters they had been given in the Master’s manor, when Bilbo caught him once more. But this time it was by the shoulder, drawing him back, nearly sloshing the wine in Thorin’s hand free as he pulled him around.

“He’s still there, Thorin,” Bilbo said, his voice low, and he did not know where the urgency came from but he tugged at Thorin’s shirt, and knew he could not let him leave without saying it. “And mark my words, he always has been.”

Thorin regarded him, then the first true smile Bilbo had seen that night softened his face and the weight that had hung on his shoulders eased, so that he no longer seemed so burdened. “If my burglar insists,” Thorin said. “Perhaps we will both come out of this better than we were.”

“I think I already have, with your help,” Bilbo said, grinning back. “I barely remember who I used to be.”

“Strange. I feel with your help, I am just remembering.” Then Thorin offered his hand, and without thinking Bilbo took it, squeezing gently. “Come, we are no longer needed here, and the day will be long. You will need your rest.”

“As will you,” Bilbo countered. “Big day, getting back so much that was taken from you.” And because he was feeling light and giddy and a bit shaken all at once, as if having just passed through a storm to the other side, he began to tug Thorin up the stairs and away. 

So he did not notice Thorin’s gaze as he watched Bilbo take the lead, as he had done without thinking so many time before.

“Yes,” Thorin murmured thoughtfully, “it has been.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can actually read the movie version of Bilbo's contract online [here](http://hole-intheground.blogspot.com/2013/02/bilbos-contract-full-text-pdf.html). It is indeed a ridiculous document which looks specifically designed to make sure the Company gets everything and Bilbo gets nothing, very hard to reconcile with the Thorin we know unless that was exactly his intention from the start. Definitely worth a read.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I would dearly love any feedback you have the time to offer, and I'm very curious what others think of this concept around Thorin's past. 
> 
> Also if you'd like to see more Bagginshield discussion, please come check me out on Tumblr as "Avelera"!


End file.
